Uber is working with BYD to lease the automaker's E6 five-door hatchback EV to the ridesharing drivers in Chicago, as part of the pilot program. The test already includes about 25 drivers and could grow to around 200.

BYD has debuted a 60-foot electric bus at the American Public Transportation Association Expo in Houston, TX. The Lancaster bus, as it is called, has a 120-passenger capacity and can drive over 170 miles on a single charge. The articulated bus features low floors and no steps, thanks to in-wheel hub motors. BYD also displayed a 40-foot electric bus that drove the 1,500 miles to the show under its own power (recharging along the way, of course). Read more in the press release below.

The US auto dealer industry recently saw a huge shakeup when Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway investment company bought Van Tuyl Group, the country's largest privately owned network of showrooms, for an undisclosed sum. Assuming the deal's regulatory success, it immediately made Buffet one of the nation's largest car retailers. But could the acquisition have come as part of a larger plan to launch a Chinese automaker in the US?

A decision on whether or not to build the Mini Superleggera has been pushed back. Earlier this year, Mini's Peter Schwarzenbauer hinted that the electric roadster concept could eventually make its way to production. Now, Schwarzenbauer is saying that a possible call is still at least six months away. "To really investigate seriously," Schwarzenbauer says, "you look into several different options, you come to the question: do we produce it ourselves, do we give it to somebody else?" Mini is consi

The US and Chilean navies have agreed to work together to develop alternative fuels for ships and aircraft. As a move toward better energy security, the two countries want to develop "drop-in alternative fuels," namely biofuels, to reduce dependence on foreign oil and ensure a reliable supply and cost. The US Navy wants to have 50 percent of "organizational consumption" come from alternative energy sources by 2020. The US is moving toward primarily using a biofuel and petroleum blend, and wants

Are you still unclear about how exactly a hydrogen fuel cell works to power a car? Hyundai is offering a great visual on how its fuel cells operate in cars like the Tucson fuel Cell. Basically, the anode splits the hydrogen molecule into a positive and negative ion. The negative ions are used for electricity, while the positive ions are pushed through a membrane to the cathode, where both ions are combined with oxygen to create the byproduct of water. There's a little more to it than that to mak

BYD has enjoyed a tremendous leap in sales since last year, according to Want China Times. Sales from January to April were ten times that of the same period last year, with much of the credit going to government subsidies for clean cars. BYD claims, though, that battery production is limiting the number of vehicles it sells, and that by increasing that production capacity, it will see even more success. BYD's Qin plug-in hybrid, introduced in December, has already sold 4,500 units with another

China-based electric-vehicle maker BYD wants to get an extra charge out of the public investment market. The company said last week that it will sell about $550 million worth of stock on the Hong Kong stock exchange. That'd be the largest single offering since the company went public in 2002.